In the latest example that virtually every conspiracy theory is almost always inevitably proven to be fact, the Financial Times reports that JP Morgan, the firm targeted by thousands of "tin foil hat" wearing, conspiratorially-oriented "gold bugs", has cut back on its US silver futures. "JPMorgan has quietly reduced a large position in the US silver futures market which had been at the centre of a controversy about its impact on global prices for the precious metal." And in what can only be considered an unprecedented victory for all those who have over the past year agitated to putting JP Morgan out of business, most recently spearheded by the likes of Mike Krieger and Max Keiser, by forcing a massive short squeeze on its commodities trading desk, we learn that "the decision by JPMorgan was an attempt to deflect public criticism of the bank’s dealings in silver, a person familiar with the matter said. The person added that the bank’s position in silver would from now on be “materially smaller” than in the past." Of course, the latter is pure and total bullshit: as Bart Chilton indicated over the weekend, it is JP Morgan who at one point or another (and possibly very recently) controlled as much as 40% of the silver market, via a massive short. Attempting to make others believe that this short could be covered without pushing the price of the silver metal to over $100/ounce is an indication of either how stupid JPM believes the general population to be, or just how desperate the firm is to end the ongoing short squeeze onslaught. Either way, we are confident that this first unprecedented confirmation that a) JPM is indeed massively short silver and b) that it is hurting bad, will merely redouble efforts to put the world's biggest financial company out of business. Lastly, this means that silver is about to really blast off as the push to really hurt JPM takes off in earnest.

The US regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, announced in September 2008 that it was investigating complaints of misconduct in the silver market, although it did not name specific entities.

However, JPMorgan said in a statement: “It is absolutely incorrect to say or imply that the Nymex, CFTC or any other exchange or regulator has instructed or asked us to reduce our position.” The bank declined to comment on whether it had reduced its position in the silver market.

The price of silver has risen more than 70 per cent since mid-August to hit a 30-year high of $30.68 a troy ounce last week on the back of a surge in investor buying and a rebound in industrial silver consumption.

In two previous reviews of the silver market, the CFTC has dismissed claims of manipulation. Most analysts say there is little reason to believe the price of silver is being systematically manipulated.

But Bart Chilton, a CFTC commissioner, said in October that he believed there had been “fraudulent efforts” to “deviously control” the silver price. He did not name any party.

Publicly available data on individual traders’ positions are sketchy. In a speech last Wednesday, Mr Chilton said that “earlier this year, one trader held more than 40 per cent of the silver market”. He declined to identify the trader.

The CFTC’s Bank Participation Report shows that one or more US banks held a gross short silver futures position equal to 19.1 per cent of the total number of outstanding contracts in early December. In January the share was 30.2 per cent.

The CFTC only reports data for the US silver futures market, a small corner of the global derivatives market for the precious metal, which is centred in London and largely traded via private over-the-counter deals. The data also do not cover transactions in the physical market.

Analysts and traders said that JPMorgan’s large short positions on New York’s Comex exchange, a division of Nymex, were hedges for the bank’s long positions in physical silver and London’s over-the-counter market.

JPMorgan has invested nearly $3bn over the past two years in its commodities business led by Blythe Masters.

And while we revel in the knowledge that the short squeeze is causing massive pain for JPM, we are far more overjoyed that the days of Blythe Masters as head of JPM's commodities desk is coming to an end: any comparable massive admission of weakness by a trader is always and inevitably followed by some very high profile terminations.

Since JPM has been reducing their short position over the previous last weeks, that could possibly explain the various intra-day surges in price which were never seen before in silver. I hope this makes sense to you silver-bugs.

Agreed, a desperate PR stunt to make traders think that they have covered most of it and were the reason for the runup in price. Therefore they are imlying prices will now fall. Trsut me , there is now way they cold have possibly covered 200 MM + ounces of silver without a substatial drop in open interest. Open interest is at a new record. More lies from JPM ....they must be REALLY REALLY desperate right now to try this stunt.

the act of delivering or distributing something (as goods or mail); his reluctant delivery of bad news; his manner of speaking was quite abrupt; her speech was barren of southernisms; I detected a slight accent in his speech;

the event of giving birth; she had a difficult delivery;

your characteristic style or manner of expressing yourself orally;

the voluntary transfer of something (title or possession) from one party to another

(baseball) the throwing of a baseball by a pitcher to a batter

recovery or preservation from loss or danger; work is the deliverance of mankind; a surgeon's job is the saving of lives;

Normally I don't have alot of time for Mish but in this case I think he's right.

JP Morgan may well have a large short position in silver futures but also being a large bank they may have a large amount of silver deposited with them & be hedging for their clients position. JP Morgan may not give a toss whether the $ price goes up or down, they are just providng a service for their clients.

Is it just me or did I miss the part in Mish's piece (or any of his articles on this matter for that matter) where he referred to the ongoing legal action regarding Jape-E-Morgan, or commented on the actions' obvious relevance to the entire subject of silver price manipulation?

Thermonuclear ! Yes that would burn the bastards.In the wild, an animal that fears death goes "frozen" and Fauns death.

Now is the time to, as they do in the Wild, grab the throat and clamp down hard, never relenting until they truly go limp. That will be the end. Never let go, until you feel the death rattle through the teeth.

I agree with you - no way they could have covered this like this - To me they have added even more short but by saying they covered they hope to see prices falling.

Now the time has come to srously slaughter them!!

Also for silver bugs...you have half of the hedge funds which are long Gold/Silver ratio at those levels and failure to hold the 45 level would wipe out few billions from JPM and Hedge Funds in just one trading day as no one will sell any silver anymore...

maybe they've covered some but the more serious problem i think they're trying to avoid is the shortage of silver. they've probably robbed allocated vaults, and if those holders discover that, they are up a shit-creek without a paddle.

in other words, they've probably covered/delivered with other people's silver and still need to replace that. if the futures market collapses because there's a run on physical, they will get destroyed. plus the whole reason and method of price supression goes up in smoke. no futures market credibility means more transactions go directly to physical and bypasses the paper .. which spills over to gold too

they've got bigger problems than covering their paper shorts. i sincerely feel sorry for anyone who hasn't any physical.

The end is near... for JPM and BofA- the two largest fraudulent operations on the planet. Worse than communist Chinese gov't propaganda. A million times worse than Water Gate. Infinitely worse than Bernie Made-off's pon... see, it's the way the system was manipulated!

if all you want to buy is the paper, then in your case it already worked. they want to distract from the truth about physical shortage.

instead of thinking about buying MORE paper for just a couple bucks cheaper, you should think in terms of when you can't buy physical ANY MORE. at least not unless there is much higher prices. there will be some who let go of it at higher prices, but there will be others standing in line to buy it. it's that line of buyers they want to make sure nobody sees.

it's a sad truth, instead of advising it's citizens to buy gold and silver, the citizens of the reserve currency, or any other failing currency, get stuck holding the bag through lies and deception.

let's assume they stand to lose $100 billion covering paper shorts, that's easy if the fed has back-stopped their actions. the problem arises if and when the paper ponzi scheme with futures and etf's goes up in smoke. they can't print more silver. even if they could ramp the production, reserves just get depleted faster. soon, the price of silver will be based on both above ground supplies and in the ground reserves, and not just how fast traders can play hot potato with paper silver.

"When you expect things to happen - strangely enough - they do happen."- J.P. Morgan"A man always has two reasons for doing anything: a good reason and the real reason. "
- J.P. Morgan"Go as far as you can see; when you get there, you'll be able to see farther." - J.P. Morgan

Which part of "To Big To Fail" don't you guys understand? As much as I would like to see Jamie Dimon hanging from a dog leash, it isn't going to happen. The Ben Bernank will find a way to bail out his bankster bosses no matter what kinda of shit the get caught up in.

"The people need to know their President is not a crook", that he is is not surrounded by crooks in his administration, looking out for the interests of other crooks, who are looking out for the interests of other far bigger crooks..... Too bad

Getting more silver, in fact silver coming out your ears, is really quite easy. Simply let the price rise. FYI, I won't part with an ounce of mine under 200 bucks, and that's just ten percent. I'll let another ten percent go at 500. The rest awaits the next currency...

Entirely OT: blunderdog, what is your avatar an image of? I've magnified it, shrunk it to a pinpoint, flipped it, inverted the colour, etc., but damned if I can make out exactly what is going on.... something about 'no briefcases to the head'? Li'l help?

Aside from rumour of such settlements being illicit, what's to stop the receiver from turning around and applying that 'cash plus premium' sum to ever increasing demands for delivery? Also: how exactly do I get in on that action? Sounds like a lock to me.

actually, commercial net short positions have been declining steadily over the past 2 month and now are 25% below the peak.

that figure is based on total open interest which has been exploding to the upside.

also net shorts as a percentage of total open interest usually bottoms near a bottom in price and increases or maxes out near a top.

net shorts have been declining like you say, but what's weird is that would be indicative of a bottom. they should be peaking right about now if this were a top.

my guess is the shorts who aren't naked shorts just don't have any physical to sell. maybe it's already been contracted. ceo of slw couple weeks ago said sophisticated buyers were approaching the company for supply but the wait is up to 3 months .. something like that. so those commercials don't need to short in the futures, they're already hedged going forward, they know the price is going up.

people really need to consider getting physical while prices are still undervaluing the metal, before it's too late imho

No idea if there is any correlation but JPM is getting nightly felatio from one Jim Cramer about what a powerhouse they are in the banking industry and what tremendous upside they have. Circle the wagons time?

i hear you. no paper ponzi, no CNBC. Jim Cramer is so deeply engulfed in cosmopolitan elitism that he is entirely unable to see the deep, deep immorality of the current system. personally, i find it very easy to see that this man is in the wilderness with no philosophical foundation in liberty. I pity him, more than anything, but do not excuse his Joseph Goebbels-like collusive actions. he would be well-served to reverse course and join the fight against the International Banking Cartel who would gladly sacrifice him (in Margaret Stewart and Bernie Madoff fashion) if they could continue the cartel. of course, they have done much worse in the past.

Hahahahaha, you think there's physical silver in JPM's phony SLV? Bwahahahahaha. Have you seen the list of serial numbers of the bars? Duplicates and phonies all over the place. This is just the volume of the music being turned down 1 percent. Wait until the music stops and peeps start looking for chairs, there's only 1 for every 100:

i'm new to this forum, but it's been impossible not to note the optimism for silver on ZH. while i'm sympathetic to the argument that monetary debasement leads to the need for alternative stores of value (real assets, which historically include precious metals), i think the JPM stories perpetuated here have made a heroic assumption that i can't find any evidence of.

i've done a lot of research on the ETFs and ETNs from a previous job at a big wall street bank. from the ishares docs, i see that JPM is both the custodian of the silver in the trust AND an "authorized participant" (which means they are a market maker who can create or redeem units of SLV shares in exchange for the silver represented by such shares). this puts them in a unique situation where they can effectively arb the various silver markets... between SLV, SI- futures, and spot silver.

i can tell you for certain, that the desk-level traders who run the arb are not authorized to accumulate naked short (or long) positions. if there is a naked short, it would come from the top... a head of trading or above. but based on the evidence, i cannot conclude that they have such a short. what i see is that JPM is running a 3-legged arb involving:

1) physical silver

2) SI futures

3) SLV shares

as needed, they take positions in zero-coupon treasuries with maturities matching futures expiry, to manage leverage and cash with the above.

my conclusion is that JPM probably does have a massive position in the futures market... which causes headlines which might annoy the NYMEX or the CFTC. but JPM's unique position as the custodian of one of the largest physical silver stockpiles in the world (i.e. they could easily manage physical deliveries with little marginal cost) AND as one of the AP's that regularly create/redeem SLV for silver, means that they are in a unique position to run arbitrage positions using silver futures against their other silver holdings. without further evidence, i would guess that JPM is indeed running a massive arbitrage between the 3 silver exposures listed above and NOT a naked short.

i would be curious if you can find evidence in the financial statements, suggesting that they do not have offsetting long positions as i assume. if not, i would be very careful buying into what i see as a phantom short squeeze.

Well of course you know you've probably got something there, and the question for lil people would be whether JPM is benefiting more from a slightly suppressed or slightly inflated spot price. What do you think?

That's the bet the *physical* buyers are placing, and most of the rabid bulls here appear to be physical buyers. Leverage that only if you can afford to, right?

For those holding physical, any gain at all is good enough, especially against depreciating fiat.

JPM most certainly has contracts to receive physical silver from suppliers, in addition to a stockpile of silver, and most importantly (via their AP status) they can freely redeem their long SLV shares for physical silver held in custody. to continue on my educated guess, they have probably accumulated an arbitrage position effectively long physical silver against short futures. investment demand for silver has been enormous over the past couple years, and most investors simply do not have the mechanism to find or take delivery of physical silver. instead they have purchased easily available and liquid futures; and this demand has likely driven the futures prices up to a level at which JPM could enter an arb of long physical (plus contracts for delivery plus SLV shares) and short futures to lock in the arb.

given that investors do not have the capacity to stand for physical delivery (even the big dog PM holders soros, paulson, and einhorn do not have protected vaults, armored cars, armed guard, etc.), a physical squeeze is very unlikely. the evidence for this is simple... the SI futures curve is very "well-behaved", i.e. forwards trade at very precise contango defined by a range between zero-coupon treasury rates and interbank swap rates. unless the forward curve breaks down into backwardation, anyone can easily roll forward any futures position at a close-to-fair price. the absence of backwardation means that there is no physical squeeze.

putting it all together - this means is that anyone buying physical silver right now is actually helping JPM close the arb at a profit. with the hysteria that has been drummed up, JPM has recently posted their media announcement that they are buying back futures... which to me suggests they also sold down physical and/or SLV to lock in some profits. it is very ironic (and very sad, because i am sympathetic to this cause) that in trying to achieve the stated goals of hurting JPM's bottom line, most of you are actually helping JPM profit on their arb position.

Coming from the member here for one week, 3 days. Sorry, but a lot of trolls and shills have joined as of late. Hell, you could be one of professional troll Harry's many Avatars.

No physical squeeze? Call all of your local coin dealers. See if they have the same stocks that they used to even a couple of months ago. In my top 25 metro area, only 2 out of 10 dealers have any silver inventory (as of one week ago). Check Apmex and see that they only have about 100 - 100 ounce bars for immediate delivery. Stocks are tightening. Call it what you want...

i don't know what a troll or shill is, and i'm not going to bother looking them up... though the need to resort to insults probably says more about you than anyone else. i'll respond one time only for the sake of stopping you all from helping JPM even more; after this you can do or say as you like.

most of the arguments of an impending short squeeze refer to the short futures which JPM holds, so i thought it was obvious that i was referring to a short-squeeze CAUSED BY FAILURE TO DELIVER PHYSICAL AGAINST SHORT FUTURES. the problem with this thesis is that there are very few investors (long or short) who are able to take or make physical delivery (of those able to make delivery, JPM is now one of the biggest). i can see that a larger proportion of futures buyers are taking physical delivery than in the past, but it is infeasible that ALL of the long futures holders are going to because they don't have the security/logistics. as always, most futures investors will roll their positions forward. evidence of a physical squeeze CAUSED BY FAILURE TO DELIVER PHYSICAL AGAINST SHORT FUTURES will be evident if the futures curve goes into backwardation, or at least if the curve breaks out from what currently is a very tight arbitrage relationship based on a combination of the riskfree and interbank rates curves. there is no evidence of this right now.

JPM's futures position suggests they are long physical silver against short futures. if i'm correct (and having worked with a delta-1 and etf creation trading desks in the past, i am quite certain i am correct), this means they do not care what happens to silver prices overall. they only care about the relative price of physical silver compared to futures (plus a forward rate adjustment). on top of this arbitrage position, they may have taken a more moderate naked long physical or short futures position; though the pnl on such a naked position would belong to a head of trading or higher.

bottom line, the act of investors buying physical silver will tend to increase the profitability of JPM's arb trade. if that's what you'd like to do, feel free to do so. don't be surprised if you learn that JPM's delta-1 and precious metals trading desks pay record bonuses this year... everyone buying physical silver right now is contributing to their bonus pool.

You're looking at this as though it's a profit motive, instead of a control motive.

If it was a profit motive, JPM would have gone long back in 03/2009 at the latest.

No it's a control method to take out the "battery" in the fiat fire alarm.

Also I'm glad to see you "shill/troll/ivory tower knownothings" jawboning. No use leading ya'll to water, you won't drink because clearly belief in hydrogen/oxygen bonds is a conspiracy and therefore the water right in front of your eyes doesn't exist.

"As an owner of iShares, you will not have the protections normally associated with ownership of shares in an investment company"

"Neither the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) nor any state securities commission has approved or disapproved of the securities offered in this prospectus, or determined if this prospectus is truthful or complete."

Trade what you believe, but SLV could essentially sit on a 100% unallocated position, and you wouldn't know about it.

The commercial short position is about 250 Moz, of which JPM are supposedly on the hook for about 80-90%, so that's the amount of physical they're supposed to have kicking about.

Regardless, say the new conspiracy theory is that JPM sit on physical long equal to their paper short position. Silver breaks out to, say, $100/oz. We experience a FTD, the paper positions are liquidated at $100/oz, and the price of physical shoots to $200/oz. JPM win, we win, everyone else loses. Given that JPM are a stakeholder in FRB, they were hardly likely to declare bankruptcy anyway, more likely the recipient of another covert bailout.

And, surely, if JPMC have access to that kind of physical - even if they obtain it by leasing from SLV, they would then be able to flood the market with it in order to drive the price of silver down. Look what happened on 2 occasions recently when silver declined in price. It recovered within days.

No - this argument that JPMC isn't in trouble with silver just doesn't hold up to scrutiny. This is what 'Mr Gold' - Jim Sinclair - has to say about it all today. I believe him first rather than this Americannywanny twerp. JPMC is this the best you can do?!?!?

Dear CIGAs,

Gold is trading at $1405.

How many of you recall the classic film, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail?"

Well, for those that do gold looks like King Arthur at dawn in Africa. The knight whose duty it was to protect the bridge from other knights crossing encounter a determined King Arthur. King Arthur approaches the bridge and is challenged by the bridge keeper to halt and not cross. A fight ensues and the knight protecting the bridge is reduced to a slaughtered stump with no arms or legs. King Arthur crosses while the bridge keeper yells at him to return as the bridge keeper threatens to bite the king to death as he no longer has arms, legs or weapons to fight with

The shorts in all things gold represents the bridge keeper. Of course, the gold guys are King Arthur.

The dopey short of all things gold cannot stop the climb of the gold price to $1650 and beyond. They are such ego maniacs that they will, like the bridge keeper, be slaughtered stumps yelling "come back, I will bite you!"

"they have probably accumulated an arbitrage position effectively long physical silver against short futures"

Hey SHILL

Now you are pissing me off. You think their whole motive here is to arb silver? You have got to be kidding me. They were MASSIVELY short silver BEFORE the SLV even existed. Why is a bank selling silver? BANKS DON'T MINE SILVER!!! The silver market is tiny, and the SLV is only 7 billion dollars. Think about that for a minute. ONLY 7 BILLION FREAKIN' DOLLARS!!! That's pocket change to these guys. THEY ARE PRINTING TRILLIONS!!!

OK Blythe, time for bed. You've got a very busy day ahead of you tomorrow trolling all the silver boards ;-)

" but JPM's unique position as the custodian of one of the largest physical silver stockpiles in the world (i.e. they could easily manage physical deliveries with little marginal cost) AND as one of the AP's that regularly create/redeem SLV for silver, means that they are in a unique position to run arbitrage positions using silver futures against their other silver holdings. without further evidence, i would guess that JPM is indeed running a massive arbitrage between the 3 silver exposures listed above and NOT a naked short."

bought up over half the world's copper production and stored it in london wharehouses....I've watched copper quadruple , rob my profit margin(i use tons of copper each year) and line JPM's pocket....its govt funded speculation, banks borrow at 1% or less and usethe money to drive prices of commodities up and drive profits of small USA manufacturing down

bought up over half the world's copper production and stored it in london wharehouses....I've watched copper quadruple , rob my profit margin(i use tons of copper each year) and line JPM's pocket....its govt funded speculation, banks borrow at 1% or less and usethe money to drive prices of commodities up and drive profits of small USA manufacturing down

You fuckers must have a serious brain fart if you think this is over and done with. The goberment will just find another suitable conduit to prosecute their shorts. if you think this is over, think again

Hand it over to what group of NAKED shorts is that exactly? Unless China still has their ancient hoard, NOBODY can cover those short positions. Yeah they can and will paper it over possibly causing COMEX contracts to drop to zero and physical to go to the Oort cloud and beyond. Nobody can keep it down though. Especially not now.

The only way silver can tank is if the market tanks in a big way, although as it's monetary nature is further revealed it could also really get the rocket sauce from a Market crash. I'd say the PTB is pretty snookered on silver.

WTG silverbugs! A silver stake in the heart of one vampire (JPM), lets finish them off and then it's time for calamari!

Comparable in that awesome German armor wound up being defeated in the end by brave and ferocious Russian foot soldiers sporting Molotive cocktails. They worked great when thrown into the engine intake vents.

Metal buyers around the world are our infantry. Silver Eagles, Keisers, bars and rounds are our Molotov cocktails. Max Keiser, Jim Rickards, James Turk, Bob Chapman, John Embry and Mike Kreiger are our heavy artillery. And JP Morgan and HSBC are the Nazi armor...